| Happy National Empanada Day! Celebrate in moderation. Or immoderately. Your call. We don’t judge.You’ll notice two new bylines on the Family Newsletter. Joining Cristina Nguyen, who also writes our Staff Weekly newsletter for Austin ISD, is Jason Stanford, who heads up communications and community engagement here and has written a little on the side. Cristina’s two kids aren’t old enough for Pre-K, and Jason’s sons graduated from McCallum and Austin high schools recently. So between the two of us, we’ve been on your side of this, too. 🍿 By the way, ever wonder what Austin ISD Pre-K is like? Follow 3-year-old Joy through a day at Pre-K in this cute video. 🌟 We’re looking for students to join the Austin ISD Summer Theatre Series program! Join us as we bring The Addams Family and Alice in Wonderland to the stage.🚗 Third through 12th graders: Join in on the Minecraft Education Net Zero Challenge starting MONDAY!Let’s dive in… |
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| Family Newsletter |
| By Cristina Nguyen + Jason Stanford ● Apr 08, 2022
Smart Brevity™ count: 5 mins... 1364 words
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Happy National Empanada Day! Celebrate in moderation. Or immoderately. Your call. We don’t judge.
You’ll notice two new bylines on the Family Newsletter. Joining Cristina Nguyen, who also writes our Staff Weekly newsletter for Austin ISD, is Jason Stanford, who heads up communications and community engagement here and has written a little on the side.
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Cristina’s two kids aren’t old enough for Pre-K, and Jason’s sons graduated from McCallum and Austin high schools recently. So between the two of us, we’ve been on your side of this, too.
🍿 By the way, ever wonder what Austin ISD Pre-K is like? Follow 3-year-old Joy through a day at Pre-K in this cute video.
🌟 We’re looking for students to join the Austin ISD Summer Theatre Series program! Join us as we bring The Addams Family and Alice in Wonderland to the stage.
🚗 Third through 12th graders: Join in on the Minecraft Education Net Zero Challenge starting MONDAY!
Let’s dive in…
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1 big thing: Teacher pay raises included in proposed budget
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In a week, we’re proposing a balanced budget to the Austin ISD Board of Trustees for the 2022-23 school year.
Why it matters: We haven’t had a balanced budget for the last six years, and we had to make some hard cuts to close an $87 million budget deficit.
Investing in staff: Proposed pay raises account for $20.8 million in the budget.
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Teachers would get a $1,000 increase for base pay plus a 2% raise at the midpoint on top of that.
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Bus drivers would also get a pay bump to a minimum of $21 per hour.
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Other workers such as janitors and groundkeepers (which we call classified staff) would now have a minimum base pay of $16 per hour.
Investing in equity and excellence: For the first time ever, we’re proposing an equity allotment to support campuses with economically disadvantaged students.
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Under the proposal, we’re putting $2 million into this new fund.
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These investments would help campuses fund special projects or clubs for students whose families may not be able to pay out-of-pocket for activities.
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Campuses would also see an increase in per-pupil allocations.
How we’re paying for it: The proposed budget includes $51.9 million in cuts. We began with cuts through attrition and eliminating vacancies throughout the year.
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We're eliminating 375 positions from Central Office and Operations. After attrition, we have notified 145 Central Office and Operations staff that their positions have been eliminated after June 30.
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During leveling last Fall, we eliminated 257 positions to align our enrollment and staffing ratios. No campus-based employees have lost jobs during these cuts.
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We made significant operational cuts in 2018, including stipends, so the only cuts that will significantly help close the budget gap must now come from staff costs. To put it in perspective, we spend 86.2% of our budget on payroll.
The bottom line: The Board of Trustees will discuss the preliminary budget next week at its Board Information Session.
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Ultimately, what’s in the budget is up to the trustees and they’ll make their final decision in June.
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We’ll continue digging into the details of the budget and how it may affect you in the next year.
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2. A round of applause for our Teacher of the Year Finalists!
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On Thursday, two elementary teachers at Perez and Ortega and two secondary teachers at Clifton Career Development School and at Lively Middle School found out they were finalists for Austin ISD Teacher of the Year (TOY).
Why it matters: Two of these finalists will be chosen as Austin ISD’s elementary and secondary TOY at Salute, our annual celebration of the district’s outstanding educators, and those winners will go on to compete for Texas TOY.
Dig deeper: These teachers are doing some amazing things:
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In less than a decade, Amador-Mercado has gone from moving from Puerto Rico to the Bronx without speaking English fluently to mentoring Social Studies teachers and supporting new dual-language social studies teachers.
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At Clifton, Antonio has partnered with PREP kitchen to teach students food industry business.
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Johnston has taught her Perez dual language students that being bilingual writers gives them more ways to communicate complex ideas more accurately.
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Rogers has implemented a coding and circuits project to give students a creative way to present their essays at Lively.
Cristina’s thought bubble: Be sure to click the link on each teacher’s name above and see their faces when they were surprised by the Teacher of the Year finalist honor!
What’s next: The winners will be announced at Salute on Thursday, May 12 at the Austin ISD Performing Arts Center.
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We will also honor winners in six other categories, including classified staff of the year, PTA of the year, librarian of the year, counselor of the year, assistant principal of the year and principal of the year.
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The event will also honor Teachers of Promise.
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3. 8th graders going to college?
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Most kids don’t make their college decisions until their senior years. Austin ISD eighth graders, though, are getting to choose colleges when they pick their high schools in what’s called the Early College High School program.
Level Set: At several Austin ISD high schools, students can take Early College Programs in technology, healthcare, real estate, construction, or education and earn a two-year associate's degree for free through our partnership with Austin Community College.
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That way, students get their college associate’s degree before they get their high school diploma, which means they can either start their careers right away or start college with two years under their belt.
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And in case I didn’t make it clear enough, this is free to students, so they get a college degree without debt.
Where do I sign my kid up? We thought you’d like this. There are two ways you can get the ball rolling:
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We’ve got our Early College High School experts touring middle schools over the next few days to help your student sign up. Details here.
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If that doesn’t work, you can always find more information and apply on our website.
💡 Jason’s thought bubble: As an AISD dad who is now writing tuition checks for his two sons, Jason wishes he knew about early college high schools earlier.
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4. This week’s engagement opportunities
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❗ PARENTS: Look for an email this weekend with the climate survey with a new deadline of April 14. Really need you to fill it out.
📍 You have one more week to submit feedback on the preliminary draft map for new single-member trustee districts.
📆 Save the date: Join us for a Budget Update later this month.
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📕 Texas is now pushing statewide rules to make it easier for critics to remove books from school libraries in every community. (CNN)
🏳️🌈 The Lieutenant Governor wants a Texas version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. (Texas Tribune)
🎉 Eastside Early College High School and International High School celebrate the campus’ grand opening last week. (KVUE)
🎈 Students and staff at the brand new Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders cut the ribbon last week during a grand opening celebration. (Fox 7)
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6. COVID-19 cases rise to 51
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Our COVID-19 cases jumped to 51 last week, an increase of 34%.
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We saw 13 staff cases, a 30% decrease from last week.
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Student cases increased by 20 cases from the previous week, coming in at 38 cases.
The bottom line: We’re seeing an increase, but not a surge in cases.
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🎁 Cristina is just glad to have her 3-year-old’s birthday party behind her so she can turn her attention to over-preparing for Easter.
🍜 This weekend, Jason is looking forward to having lunch with his youngest son, who is visiting from UTSA.
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